The roast chicken is in the oven, potatoes, and some steamed spinach. I just poured us two glasses of chardonnay. I call out, “How much time till we eat?” Jenny replies, “Twenty-five minutes.” Now what? I have some energy, but not a lot. I don’t want to exert myself anymore today. It’s Me Time, a little snack-sized serving to do something for myself. How often life serves up these little gaps in the day, time I might waste by scrolling on my phone. These are some of the things I did...
10 days ago • 3 min read
When I was about fifteen, I developed an obsession with the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It is a wonderful place that wraps around the back of the granite walls of the Brooklyn Museum. I would take the #2 train of a Sunday and stroll its grounds in a sort of fugue. I wouldn’t see the old ladies with their walkers or the bearded hippies studying the vegetable garden or the Bangladeshi families in their Sunday best taking family photos with their Instamatics. They didn’t exist because I was...
17 days ago • 7 min read
Life is not an oil painting, sealed behind varnish and clamped in a golden frame, hanging in a white walled gallery in Chelsea, waiting to be bought by a hedge fund manager’s third wife. Life is not an edition of etchings, a long series of identical impressions. Life is not a mural, intended as a public display or the backdrop to an expensively furnished room. Life is not wallpaper. Life is not a bronze sculpture, cold, monumental, an abstracted, idealized image of a hero long forgotten. Life...
24 days ago • 2 min read
Yesterday I sat down in my studio and I thought about doing some drawing. My studio is a haven with climate control and voice-controlled lighting. I have carts full of watercolor sets and trays of colored pencils, a shelf groaning with unopened sketchbooks. It’s the perfect place to draw. And yet, I couldn't. Excuses were legion. I didn't have an inspiring idea for a subject matter. My boxes of markers and tubes of gouache just weren't firing me up. My back was a little stiff. I was...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
On the bottom shelf, under a pile of empty shopping bags in my garage, there's a big beaten-up cardboard box. On its side, in faded marker, is scrawled “writing stuff.” I'm working on a video about handwriting, and so I decided to crack open that old box and look inside for some examples of what my handwriting looked like when I was a much younger man. Inside are notebook after notebook full of stories and opening chapters and essays and journals that I wrote in the decade or so after I...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Why do you want to make art? What's in it for you? How will you feel about yourself if you are creatively productive? Do you care more about the product of your creativity or the process? Do you want to have a nice picture to hang on your wall, or do you want to have the feeling that comes from being creative? Write a paragraph or two about this. It will be a helpful reminder next time you're stuck. Here's my paragraph (because I’m me, there are three paragraphs)…¦. My why: I want to see what...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
After launching my new course, instead of diving right into my next project, I felt an overwhelming urge to clean. To create order from chaos. To feel safe and comfortable once again. The tidying tornado that started in my art supply cupboard soon took over the whole house. The garage. The HVAC closet. The kitchen. The garden. Even our social calendar got Marie Kondo'd. There's something deeply satisfying about putting everything back where it belongs. About disposing of the broken and...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
When I was in high school, I woke up one February morning, staggered into the shower, set the family table for breakfast, groggily downed some toast and tea, then walked through the still-dark streets to my school. The streets were quiet and empty. When I got to school, the doors were locked. On the corner, the Bowery Saving Bank's clock flashed "37 degrees" then, "3:22 am.” Damn it. I turned around, walked home, and fell back in bed, fully clothed. Three hours later, I did the whole thing...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Each Tuesday for the last three years, I have shared Studio Notebook with you. And now, one of my biggest experiments is coming to an end. It’s been a great success — and you are the reason it has. Knowing that you are interested enough in my work, my ideas, and my dad jokes to fork over a few bucks each month has been so encouraging. The Internet has been revolutionary — giving anyone with a computer and an Internet connection the opportunity to reach people all around the world in an...
2 months ago • 4 min read